Elected on Monday, the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, unveiled the very dense agenda that awaits him during the month of May, which includes a royal visit to Ottawa, but first a long -awaited meeting with the American president, Donald Trump, next Tuesday.
The liberal chief will not be able to rest too long after his electoral campaign. He had to fly to the American capital on Monday evening to shake hands with the United States the next day.
He made it the announcement at his first press conference since his election at the head of a minority government on Friday morning. “We are going to focus on immediate trade issues-and the broader question of our economic future, our security relationship,” he said to journalists about his upcoming meeting with Mr. Trump.
Several senior US government officials will be present, said Prime Minister Carney, without appointing them. “All this shows all the seriousness [accordé à la rencontre]. »
He did not want to reveal much more about his strategy, except to say that he did not immediately exclude negotiating first on the lifting of customs duties before talking about a global economic agreement. “It is a negotiation that will be complex. »»
After a telephone call on Tuesday, President Trump had already announced that Mr. Carney would come to join him at the White House next week. The two men should also meet at the next G7 summit in Alberta in June.
The king in parliament
In a highly faster pace than that to which Ottawa journalists were used to, Mark Carney debited the announcements on Friday after the other.
For example, he indicated that it was none other than King Charles III in person who will read his speech from the throne on the return from Parliament, scheduled for the week of May 26. “I asked the King, his Majesty, and he accepted: he will come to the opening of the Parliament. It is a decision that underlines the sovereignty of Canada, of our country. […] It is our head of state, ultimately, “he explained.
It will be the first time that a monarch has been inaugurating a parliamentary session in 48 years, since the visit of Queen Elisabeth II in 1977. It was normally the general governor of Canada who read the Throne’s speech from the Senate.
The announcement of the royal visit spoke of the sovereignist parties in Quebec and Ottawa. “Almost all Quebecers want to know anything about the British monarchy,” wrote the chief of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, on his social networks. “Mark Carney, to bring the attributes of Canadian sovereignty, invites a foreign monarch to inaugurate the legislature of which he will be Prime Minister. Strange, “noted the Bloc Québécois by press release.
-The new Canadian Prime Minister has already lived in the United Kingdom, where he held the post of governor of the Bank of England. He returned to this country in a first official trip, in March, during which he precisely met King Charles III, after having tightened the pliers to the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Even if the Prime Minister did not obtain voters the parliamentary majority, he believes that he did have the “strong mandate” he asked for the Canadians, citing the record number of 8.5 million votes collected by his party and the victory of candidates in all the provinces, including a large contingent in Quebec.
He also insisted on the “message” heard from the polls according to which the cost of living must decrease and the communities must be safe, the themes of predilection of the campaign of the Conservative Party, who arrived second.
Hairy will go through Alberta
The Head of Government of Canada spoke from the National Press Theater, an Ottawa room that parliamentary journalists manage themselves and which had been shunned by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in recent years. Leaving the scene, Mark Carney has also promised that he would return.
Among the many announcements made in burst on Friday, Mr. Carney rejected the idea of allying himself formally with the new Democratic Party as his predecessor had done during the last mandate.
He also said that he would trigger as quickly as possible from the by -elections if the leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, asked him.
The one who was his main rival in the last elections lost his seat in Carleton, in the suburbs of Ottawa. This has the consequence of withdrawing his title as head of the official opposition and the privileges associated with it as long and as long as a deputy for his Caucus does not give him his place so that he is candidate for a by -election. An elected representative of Alberta agreed to sacrifice herself for her leader on Friday.
The Liberal chief also said that he had already spoken on the phone with Mr. Poilievre, and had an “extremely constructive” discussion with the chief of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet. Above all, he highlighted the importance of working “in close collaboration” with the provinces, territories and indigenous groups.
He recalled certain promises of his campaign, expected in a budget this spring: tax cuts for the middle class before Canada’s party, withdrawal from the sales tax on new houses of less than $ 1 million for the first buyers, creation of an agency baptized Maisons Canada and colossal increase in the military budget.
During the week of May 12, shortly after his visit to the United States, Mark Carney will announce the composition of his new ministerial cabinet. To a journalist who asked him if François-Philippe Champagne was going to remain his Minister of Finance to write his first budget, the Prime Minister replied by jokingly: “Did he ask you to ask me? The reply caused general hilarity.
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